Jurors in Yeardley Love murder trial returning to work - USA Today
CHARLOTTESVILLE – The jury in the Yeardley Love murder trial began deliberations shortly after 9:25 Wednesday morning.
Norm Shafer, AP
George Huguely V, is escorted by a sheriff's deputy as he arrives for court Saturday, which was the last day of testimony.
Norm Shafer, AP
George Huguely V, is escorted by a sheriff's deputy as he arrives for court Saturday, which was the last day of testimony.
"I'm going to turn the case over to you," Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Edward L. Hogshire said.
Two alternates, both women, were selected by lot, leaving a jury of seven men and five women. George Huguely V has pleaded not guilty to six charges, including first-degree murder and felony murder in commission of a robbery.
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STORY: Testimony concludes with rare Saturday session
Jurors sent out a question for the judge after 10:30 a.m. Hogshire said their note said, "We would like a definition of reason" as it relates to one of the judge's jury instructions. Hogshire told lawyers for both sides that he would send a note to tell the jury that the word carries no special meaning "beyond common usage."
The case garnered national attention almost immediately in 2010. Love, 22, was a pretty student at an elite college who played lacrosse on a nationally ranked team and the alleged killer was her on-again, off-again boyfriend. They were University of Virginia seniors just weeks from graduation and he also played lacrosse on a nationally ranked team.
Love was found dead, facedown in her bloody pillow, by a roommate at around 2 a.m. on May 3, 2010. Police answered a call of an alcohol overdose but officers saw a hole punched in her bedroom door and quickly treated Love's bedroom as a crime scene.
Police brought Huguely in for questioning later that day and he waived his right not to speak, telling interrogators that he went to Love's apartment that night to talk to her. He said she freaked out and they wrestled on the floor. He said he tossed her in bed and left with her computer.
The medical examiner ruled she died of blunt force trauma. The defense brought in medical experts to dispute that, suggesting she smothered in her pillow and hemorrhages in her brain were caused by CPR. The prosecution suggested those theories are outside the bounds of accepted medical science.
Jurors sat through a two-week trial and had three full days off between Saturday evening's closing statements and the beginning of deliberations Wednesday morning. They had hundreds of trial exhibits, the testimony of nearly 60 witnesses and the competing narratives of prosecution and defense to consider.
Prosecutor Warren D. Chapman in his closing depicted Huguely as a controlling abuser who killed Love in a jealous rage. Defense attorney Lawrence McQ. Lawrence painted his client as a stupid, drunk "boy athlete" who was incapable of murder, though Lawrence conceded that Huguely "contributed" to Love's death and he asked the jury to consider involuntary manslaughter. He said Huguely took the computer as an afterthought.
Witnesses spoke of a volatile two-year relationship marked by infidelities and jealousies on both sides. Huguely sent Love an email in the days before she died that said, in part, "I should have killed you." The defense called that an innocent idiom, not a threat.
If a guilty verdict is reached, the jury will begin hearing testimony in the sentencing phase of the trial. Huguely faces maximum life sentences if convicted on first-degree or felony murder charges.
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